Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s (R) executive order to ban the sale of intoxicating hemp products was held up last week by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who rejected the emergency rules for not meeting certain state law criteria, the Missouri Independent reports.
The ban, which was supposed to take effect on September 1, would have prohibited the sale of hemp-derived products containing delta-8 and delta-10 THC, hexahydrocannabinol (HHC), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-O), tetrahydrocannabiphoral (THCP), and tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV). But after Ashcroft rejected the governor’s plan, officials now must submit rules to ban intoxicating hemp products like they would any other law — a process that could take up to six months, the governor said in a scathing letter to Ashcroft.
“Without question, our office and hundreds of thousands of parents and grandparents across the state view the matter of protecting Missouri children as an emergency in need of immediate action. By refusing to grant emergency rules to ban the sale of unregulated psychoactive cannabis products, especially to children, Secretary Ashcroft is choosing personal vendetta and unregulated, dangerous products over the health and safety of Missouri kids.” — Gov. Parson, in a press release
A spokesperson for Ashcroft’s office said he has the “discretion to determine what constitutes an emergency rule” and noted that the standard rules procedure includes a 30- or 60-day comment period, “where individuals on both sides can comment on the rule.” After the public comment period, the proposal would be considered by state lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, the report said.
Chuck Hatfield, an attorney for the Missouri Hemp Trade Association, told the Independent that lawmakers should be in charge of regulating the hemp products industry, not the governor through executive action.
“Trying to do it through executive order and bureaucratic action is just not good government,” he said. “And I think the Secretary of State today, in part, recognized that.”
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